ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Wednesday, August 20th 2008

When is a new brand not a new brand?

Imagine my raised eyebrow for a minute when I read the headline Mazda rolls out fresh identity.

My immediate thought is ‘great, about time, they were starting to look a little dated and they’ve been pedalling that infernal ‘zoom-zoom’ for far too long’.

And then I read the article…

Japanese car manufacturer Mazda is to run a phased marketing campaign to introduce its revamped brand identity to UK consumers over the next three months.

We’re off to a good start, this sounds promising…

All marketing communications, will feature the updated branding to coincide with a relaunch of the Mazda website. It will then roll out an ad campaign from October to promote the new look.

Brilliant, nice and assertive, no messing around…

Although it is retaining the ‘dynamic wing’ graphic element its logo, as well as its eight-year-old strapline ‘Zoom Zoom’, all text and car images will be set at a 30 degree angle. The company logo will also be set against a 30 degree white stripe.

What?

You said ‘revamped brand identity’?

This is reheating yesterday’s leftovers. Can an existing brand be ‘revamped’ credibly? I’m not sure it can. A brand can evolve over a period of time, this is something quite common in the automotive industry, to good effect. But revamp?

The dictionary definition of revamp is to renovate, remodel or transform. Is this what Mazda are doing? Sticking an existing brand and strapline on a 30 degree angle?

I would love to have been in that meeting!